Puh. Here's the final part!
It's also the shortest... (I'm terribly sorry!) but that doesn't mean it's less important!
Enjoy reading!
Three Times Christmas:
Part 3
December 2109
Her hair moved in the cold air of Christmas Eve, the carbon dioxide she blew out crystallised in the air and her eyes reflected the various coloured light of the MWPSB Tower while she stood before it. For around a month this place had been her home. Now she was going to school and lived in a fine apartment in the city and didn´t help hunting down an arsonist and other criminals anymore while living under the same roof as latent criminals.
Sometimes she really missed the good old times.
Sekimoto Natsumi was now standing in front of the tower for thirty minutes and was glad that Hanako and Taro ‒ the mascots of the MWPSB ‒ hadn´t already asked her what she was doing in front of the tower.
After another five minutes of shivering and playing with the thought of going home Natsumi finally braced herself and went in. Her legs shook even more inside than while she had stood outside.
You can do it, Natsumi. Some months ago you walked in and out those doors every day.
But back then she had been allowed to do something like that. Hopefully, nobody would punish her of entering the MWPSB Tower without permission. Good for her, she knew the less crowed ways to go to her destination.
Natsumi walked through the corridors and headed to Division One´s office. I´m almost there. Right before the office´s door she stopped, closed her eyes and waited until her heart stopped running a marathon while slowly counting from twenty backwards. She hadn´t seen Kogami Shinya, Sasayama Mitsuru, Kunizuka Yayoi, Masaoka Tomomi, Ginoza Nobuchika and Karanomori Shion in months and feared that they didn´t want to see her. That she should have accepted her new friends´s invitation to celebrate Christmas with them.
When she was ready, she opened her eyes again and stepped through the transparent door, hoping that nobody had seen her silhouette through it.
And she had been right. Nobody had seen her... because nobody was inside the office.
With sadness running through her body Natsumi looked at the familiar office. Of course ‒ it´s Christmas. She just wanted to return home as it was hopeless to wait here, when the door behind her slid open again and a familiar voice said:
"Oh, it´s you."
Natsumi turned around and took a step back to let Ginoza Nobuchika in. She watched him with big eyes while he went to his desk and sat down on his chair. When he finally sat he looked at her, his green eyes sharp behind the glasses.
"You don´t have permission to be here and you know that pretty well, Sekimoto Natsumi."
Natsumi smiled at the detective shyly. "I´m terribly sorry for that, Ginoza-san."
"I have never thought to see you ever again. So ‒ why are you here?"
"Because it´s Christmas."
He pushed up his glasses. "Such a foolish reason. Christmas? That´s everything?"
She nodded firmly. "Exactly. Also, I´m wondering why you´re not celebrating Christmas with your father."
Ginoza glared at her. "You know why, Sekimoto."
Natsumi moved more into the room and took a brief look through the office. Everything looked as like remembered. Bottles next to Masaoka´s desk, music magazines laid on Kunizuka´s desk, cigarettes all over Sasayama´s desk, Ginoza´s incredibly tidy desk and Kogami´s slightly messy one. So they hadn´t got some new colleagues over the last months.
"Even if you´re not on good terms with your father for what has happened to him, you shouldn´t be alone on Christmas if you don´t have to. Also you have a living grandmother with whom you can celebrate. You should be everywhere but here, Ginoza-san."
"You don´t understand this, Sekimoto. I´m an Inspector. My work just doesn´t freeze on Christmas. Criminals run around especially on Christmas."
She looked at him warmly. "I know. But you´re here all alone. You just can´t hunt down criminals all by yourself."
"Kogami and Sasayama are also on duty," Ginoza replied grumpily.
"Really? And where are they? Invisible?"
"This is not the right place for terrible jokes, Sekimoto. They are bringing a runaway student from Oso Academy back home."
Suddenly something rung in Natsumi´s head and she frowned which caused Ginoza to look at her worryingly.
"Is anything wrong, Sekimoto?" he wanted to know.
She shook her head. "Nothing," she answered and smiled at him.
"You look pale, you should sit down," Ginoza mumbled and Natsumi continued to smile at him while she let herself fall onto Kogami´s chair as his desk was the one next to Ginoza´s.
She looked at him with sympathetic eyes. "I know when it´s finishing time, Ginoza-san. And when Sasayama-san and Kogami-san come back it will be far beyond finishing time. And when you´re not waiting for them ‒ I know you aren´t ‒ why are you here?"
Ginoza avoided her gaze and when she rolled with her chair over to him and laid her hand onto his he flinched but looked up and looked right into her serious eyes.
"You can tell me. We´re kind of friends, aren´t we?"
He blinked at her for a long time and then finally sighed.
"What do you want, Sekimoto?"
"I want you to get your father and drive to your grandmother´s home for celebrating Christmas. Even if you can´t look into his face right now because he had to leave you and your mother when you were just a little kid, he´s still part of the family you have left. It´s Christmas. Your father and your grandmother are the ones you can always go to. The place you can always return to. And even if it´s for only three days, you should know that every time you want to go to this place and such a place exists you should immediately go there without thinking. Nobody should be sad when it can be avoided."
And when he now looked into her face he saw the sadness in her facial features and eyes and suddenly he felt incredibly terrible and his heart sunk in his chest.
"I´m sorry, Sekimoto."
"Why are you apologising, Ginoza-san?" she asked and blinked at him.
"Because you don´t have such a place."
To his surprise she laughed for a moment. "I have one. I just need to find it. Only because I´ve forgotten about my special place doesn´t mean that it has vanished. I´m certain that it is still existing, that it´s somewhere out there ‒ I just need to find it."
"But what will you do until you´ll find it?"
"There´s always a place to return to. You can´t lose your special place. Because there will always be such a place. And even if I have forgotten about mine, I still have one."
Ginoza raised an eyebrow at her. "This office?"
Again, she laughed but, of course, he knew that she wasn´t laughing at him. "Not solely."
Natsumi stood up and patted his hand. "I have to go. It was really nice to see you again, Ginoza-san. Could you please greet the others for me? And ‒ Merry Christmas."
But before she could leave the office, Ginoza raised his voice again.
"Th... thank... thank you and... and Merry Christmas, Sekimoto."
She turned around and gave him the most beautiful of all smiles.
And then she was gone.
When she stepped out of the tower snow was falling from the sky upon the earth and painted everything white. And when some delicate snowflakes fell down on her nose she couldn´t help herself and giggled. And she did it all the way back home.
Sekimoto Natsumi was gone for forty-nine minutes when Kogami Shinya and Sasayama Mitsuru entered the office. Sasayama´s gaze immediately fell upon the huge bag full of cookies.
"Woah. Gino-sensei, did you make these cookies?"
Ginoza glared at him. "You will never guess who has baked them."
"Yayoi? I´ve never thought that... "
"Kunizuka didn´t bake them," Ginoza interrupted.
"Tottsan?" Kogami suggested.
"Wrong. One more time."
"Shion?" his old friend tried one more time and failed one more time.
Ginoza shook his head. "All wrong. It was Sekimoto."
Synchronously, Sasayama and Kogami turned at him which let Ginoza smile in his mind.
"Natsumi-san was here?" Kogami asked in disbelief.
"Tsu was here?" Sasayama asked at the same time.
Ginoza nodded. "She came to say hello to us for Christmas. However, only I was here. We chatted a while and then she left. Also, she greets you."
"I can´t believe that she was here and we´ve missed her, Kogami," Sasayama cried out and let himself fall onto his chair slouchy. Kogami himself also looked pretty grumpy because of this.
"The cookies are great by the way," Ginoza said out of the blue.
Kogami frowned at him. "Since when do you like sweet things, Gino?"
He simply shrugged. "They aren´t so sweet. You should eat some. You shouldn´t only like them because they´re made by Sekimoto." Ginoza stood up from his chair, picking up his coat and scarf. "Also, this girl could also be a ninja. She has left the bag with the cookies here without I noticed."
"Are you going somewhere?" Kogami asked when Ginoza was done with putting on his coat and scarf.
"I´m going to get Masaoka and take him to my granny´s house." With those words he was gone, leaving the other two men stunned.
"I think Tsu has spread her Tsu magic again," Sasayama grinned and then craned his head towards Kogami.
"We just have to visit her soon. I miss her. I really miss her. Even my hair misses her. Also, we have to apologise at her for not being here to see her."
"We will go seeing her after finishing our current case," Kogami said a bit absently as he had lost himself into one of Natsumi´s cookies while he wished that their current case would be solved soon as he missed her as much as Sasayama. Probably even a bit more.
"You really have beautiful and healthy hair. Are you sure that you want to cut it, Sekimoto-san?"
Natsumi nodded firmly while looking at herself in the mirror. "I´m absolutely sure."
And while the hairdresser began her work Natsumi followed everyone of her movements and felt long streaks of her hair falling down her shoulders and revealing a brand new person ‒ whoever she had been in her past life was now gone, everything what was left now was Sekimoto Natsumi.
Okay. That was everything. Happy Holidays and a happy Sylvester/New Year!
"Chapter 11 - Clouded Days" will come in January then! See you again in January!
Momo
- finally taking a break